


Jolly Sailor Bold

by QueenForADay



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, First Meetings, Mermaids, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 13:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8753416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenForADay/pseuds/QueenForADay
Summary: Samuel Drake, an infamous pirate off the South American waters, barely survives a storm at sea. Waking up on a beach in the middle of nowhere, he meets his rescuer.





	

“-and I’m telling you that we have been this way before!”

The Captain runs his hand through his hair, trying not to throw a harrowing gaze to his first-mate. The room is dark, lit only by a few candles and lanterns lit on the table and throughout the cabin. The world outside is different. The storm that has been chasing them for weeks has finally caught up with them.

He looks down at the map again. The currents have been taking them the same way for weeks now, even after they’ve turned around and gone the other way. They still manage to end up near the cliffs.

“I can have the men on deck trying to keep us away from it, but I’m telling you Sam,” his first-mate looks levelly at him, “we’re caught in a current.”

Rafe steps back from the table and folds his arms over his chest. “We need to dock at the next town and wait it out.”

Just as Sam tries to argue against his first-mate, there’s shout from above deck. It’s barely heard over the rumbling of thunder, but Sam’s ears prick at the sound. He grabs his jacket and hat and runs out of the cabin with Rafe closely behind him. The rest of the crew that were asleep in the bunks along the deck stumble out of bed.

“Captain!” the same voice shouts again. When Sam and Rafe break out on to the deck, Sam’s eyes widen at the damaged cause. A lightning bolt must have hit the main mast – the top of it has shattered, with lines of rope from the mast now swinging about with every change in wind direction.

Rafe rushes forward to help a number of crew putting away canons and ammunition, barking orders for more to help and forget about the mast.

The main mast is already down, and the ship has stopped, being rocked violently by currents battering against the side of the ship. Sam staggers forward with a few crew members and grab hold of a rope attached to a overhanging pole. “It needs to come down!” Sam shouts over the wind. He pulls with the other members, managing to get the pole away from the damaged mast.

That’s when something hits the side of the deck. Everyone jolts to the side, with a few falling down on to the deck. Sam looks over his shoulder and sees a rogue wave cresting a few miles off. “Shit,” he curses under his breath. He staggers to his feet. “Shit, shit, SHIT.”

Sam scrambles to the wheel of the ship.

“Rogue wave cresting!” someone shouts over the wind.

Rafe is already at the rudder of the ship, pulling at the wheel to bank towards the wave. When Sam reaches the wheel, he grabs on to whatever part Rafe can’t reach and pulls with him.

The wave is cresting too quickly, Sam realises as the ship can’t turn fast enough. “Sam,” he hears Rafe say – he never calls Sam by his name – “what do we do?”

One look at Rafe’s face and he can tell that he’s panicking. Sam is too, but hopes that his own face is neutral. He looks up at the wave and takes a deep breath. It’s starting to swell now.

“EVERYONE GET DOWN!” he screams over the wind. Everyone on the deck grabs on to something and drops down to the boards.

When the wave hits, the ship is battered to the side, flinging people into the water and eventually the ship follows.

Everything is calm for a moment. The thunder is nothing but a rumble now, and the ocean’s current lulls his body to the right and left, gently rocking him. It’s nothing like the carnage above water.

The currents are too strong. Every time he lifts his arms to swim up, or tries to kick his legs, something heavy is pulling him down.

It’s so dark. The top of the water is only lit by moonlight.

Air is leaving him. His lungs ache with every second that passes.

Everything goes back.

 

When Sam comes to, he’s on a beach.

It’s a long stretch of white-sand beach, with planks of splintered wood floating up to the shoreline with every lap of the ocean. He manages to slowly sit up. The sun is hanging high in the sky, brightly shining against a light blue sky.

Then he remembers the storm. His mother always used to tell him that the best weather for sailing always came after a storm. He looks up and down the beach. A few feet away, he spots Rafe. In a similar state as Sam, his jacket is gone, but his clothes are still on him.

He slowly gets to his feet. Some of his crewmates are on the beach – he can list them off easily. He runs through their names in his head, making sure he has everyone.

Sam staggers slightly. The world around him is too bright, and he’s so dizzy. His head hurts – then he remembers hitting his head on a plank of wood when he was underwater.

He sucks in a deep breath. He was underwater…for a long time.

How isn’t he dead? How aren’t any of them dead?

Then he hears it – a humming sound. It sounds similar to the one he heard underneath the water, just before everything went black. He turns around and faces the sea. The line of the horizon is empty, far away from any sign of nearby islands or land masses.

It’s coming from the ocean, he realises. He starts walking to the shoreline.

There’s a stretch of dock, the only indicating sign of life on the beach. He steps up onto the worn wooden planks. They heave slightly under his boots, but they’re strong enough to hold.

The ocean is so clear, he thinks as he walks along the dock. Colourful fish pool near the beams supporting the dock, feeding off of the coral and algae there. He’s never seen those types of fish before. He’s never had the time to.

He hears something, suddenly – a soft humming, barely audible over the sea breeze, but he hears it.

When he reaches the end of the dock he looks out on to the ocean.

There’s lapping of water against the beams of the dock, but he can hear something else. Something in the water is moving. He looks down and sees the end of a fish-tail, but large. It’s shimmering in the water, the shiny silver scales reflecting the light of the sun.

He lowers himself down onto one knee to get a better look, but the tail pulls away underneath the dock. He sees through the cracks of the boards the tail drifting through the currents, barley fluttering.

He turns around and almost shoots backwards when, out from underneath the dock comes the torso of a woman.

He takes a few steps back and just watches. She glides through the clear water, her hair flowing behind her. Golden and silver scales cover most of her body, shimmering brightly when the sunlight hits them.

Sam takes a small step forward, even though most of his body and mind screams at him not to.

She turns around in the water, a fluid motion, until he can see her face – a human woman face. With a flourish of her tail, her torso breaches the water, and she takes a long breath.

She pushes her wet hair from her face, pulling it over her shoulder. If he hadn’t had seen the tail, he would assume that she was a normal human girl. But there’s something about her that’s luring him in.

She blinks at him, and for a moment, nothing is said.

“Hello,” he offers, his voice almost sticking in his throat. Stories of mermaids and sirens plague any town or city he visits. He’s never seen one though.

She gives him a small smile. “Hello,” she replies. It startles him slightly.

He looks back to the beach. He should go back, into land, where he can’t see her anymore. But something’s making him stay.

She must be following his gaze because she speaks up, “You’re crew should be alright. The currents were very strong, but we managed to find all of your crew.”

Sam turns back around, almost shocked that she’s still there and not a hallucination. Maybe he’s dead, maybe he died in that storm.

“You were drowning,” she says softly, rising up to the edge of the dock and resting her arms on it. Out of the water, he sees that just above her chest is covered with shimmering scales, covering her front and wrapping around underneath her arms. “I didn’t want anyone drowning in my ocean.”

Sam raises his eyebrow. “ _You’re_ ocean?”

She smiles. “Yes, every drop of this ocean, from the southern cliffs to the northern sea-towns is mine.”

He slowly lowers himself down on to his haunches. Everything about her looks human – everything is just more defined. When he looks down at her hands, he sees the skin between her fingers is slightly webbed.

She tilts her head slightly when he starts staring. It occurs to him that she must be staring back.

“You’re beautiful,” he says softly. Sam’s eyes widen after the words come out of his mouth. He stands up quickly. “Is this some trick? That’s what mermaids do, don’t they?”

He expects her to sink back below the water and disappear, or for her to start shouting back, or start attacking him. But she laughs.

“You’re silly,” she chuckles, “ _sirens_ do that. We don’t.”

He hears shouting on the beach. He looks over and sees some of his crew starting to wake up. Rafe is awake and walking down the dock towards him.

When Sam turns around, she’s gone from the dock and swimming towards the open ocean. She spares him one last look over her shoulder before diving down beneath the water.

“Sam!”

Rafe appears at his side. “Are you deaf?”

He looks out on to the ocean and then back to Sam. “What are you doing?”

Sam takes his hat from Rafe and puts it on. “Nothing,” he claps his first-mate’s shoulder. “Come on – there must be a way off this island.”

**Author's Note:**

> Any other prompts can be submitted to my tumblr!
> 
> yourqueenforayear.tumblr.com


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